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Final WebGL 1.0 Specification Released, WebCL is Coming

At the GDC 2011, Khronos has released the final WebGL 1.0 specification. WebGL enables hardware-accelerated 3D graphics in HTML5 Web browsers without the need for plug-ins. WebGL defines a JavaScript binding to OpenGL ES 2.0 to allow rich 3D graphics within a browser on any platform supporting the industry-standard OpenGL or OpenGL ES graphics APIs.

WebGL™ is an immediate mode 3D rendering API designed for the web. It is derived from OpenGL® ES 2.0, and provides similar rendering functionality, but in an HTML context. WebGL is designed as a rendering context for the HTML Canvas element. The HTML Canvas provides a destination for programmatic rendering in web pages, and allows for performing that rendering using different rendering APIs. The only such interface described as part of the Canvas specification is the 2D canvas rendering context, CanvasRenderingContext2D. This document describes another such interface, WebGLRenderingContext, which presents the WebGL API.

WebCL is the JavaScript binding to OpenCL, the open computing language. WebCL creates the potential to harness GPU and multi-core CPU parallel processing from a Web browser, enabling significant acceleration of applications such as image and video processing and advanced physics for WebGL games.